Mon. Apr 29th, 2024

The title of this post comes from an article that just came out in JAMA called System-Level Factors and Time Spent on Electronic Health Records by Primary Care Physicians. It’s quite sad. Did you know that Primary care physicians (PCPs) spend the most time on the EHR of any specialty? Couple that with being one of the lowest-paid specialties and then sprinkle in quality metrics, dealing with administrators, doing useless MOC, and grinding through 25 patients a day and you have a perfect recipe for disaster.

You can read the article itself but here are the conclusions:

EHR time burden, and the burnout associated with this burden, represent a serious threat to the PCP workforce. Our study identified significant variation in EHR time across both individual PCPs and PCPs within clinics. We found that team and clinic factors, such as teamwork on orders, having a pharmacy technician, and practicing in a CHC, were associated with lesser EHR time. These findings can guide health system leaders as they develop new approaches to care delivery that address the burden of the EHR for PCPs and enhance the sustainability of modern primary care practice

Pretty interesting, right? All you need is a full team, a pharmacy technician, and a community health center and you are good to go. Do you know what would really ENHANCE the sustainability of modern primary care practices?

DIRECT PRIMARY CARE

I wish they would measure the time we spend on the EHR, whether it’s Atlas or Hint or whichever. Even better, I wish they would compare what we PUT in the EHR as far as pertinent and in-depth assessments vs. their rushed garbage that no other doctor would want to read. DPC would blow their minds. But they will never do that because it would break the system and we can’t have that.

Okay, that was just my rant for the day. What do you think?

176310cookie-checkWhat Are Your “System-Level Factors and Time Spent on Electronic Health Records”
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By Douglas Farrago, MD

Douglas Farrago MD is board certified in the specialty of Family Practice. He is the inventor of a product called the Knee Saver which is currently in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Knee Saver and its knock-offs are worn by many major league baseball catchers. He is also the inventor of the CryoHelmet used by athletes for head injuries as well as migraine sufferers. From 2001 – 2011, Dr. Farrago was the editor and creator of the Placebo Journal which ran for 10 full years. Described as the Mad Magazine for doctors, he and the Placebo Journal were featured in the Washington Post, US News and World Report, the AP, and the NY Times. Douglas Farrago, MD received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Virginia in 1987, his Masters of Education degree in the area of Exercise Science from the University of Houston in 1990, and his Medical Degree from the University of Texas at Houston in 1994. His residency training occurred way up north at the Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine. In his final year, he was elected Chief Resident by his peers. Dr. Farrago has practiced family medicine for twenty-three years, first in Auburn, Maine and now in Forest, Virginia. He founded Forest Direct Primary Care in 2014, which quickly filled in 18 months. Dr. Farrago still blogs every day on his website Authenticmedicine.com and lectures worldwide about the present crisis in our healthcare system and the effect it has on the doctor-patient relationship. Dr. Farrago’s has written three books on direct primary care: The Official Guide to Starting Your Own Direct Primary Care Practice, The Direct Primary Care Doctor’s Daily Motivational Journal and Slowing the Churn in Direct Primary Care (While Also Keeping Your Sanity) are all best sellers in this genre. He is a leading expert in direct primary care model and lectures medical students, residents, and doctors on how to start their own DPC practice. He retired from clinical medicine in October, 2020.

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